Butterflies released in memory of loved ones

Tuesday

Aug 28, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 28, 2007 at 10:53 PM

There’s something mythical, hopeful and fanciful about butterflies. Their otherworldly life cycle — the secret transformation that takes place inside a chrysalis, where a nubby caterpillar somehow metamorphoses into a delicate butterfly — gives butterflies an ephemeral, fairy-like quality.

Hilary Smith

There’s something mythical, hopeful and fanciful about butterflies. Their otherworldly life cycle — the secret transformation that takes place inside a chrysalis, where a nubby caterpillar somehow metamorphoses into a delicate butterfly — gives butterflies an ephemeral, fairy-like quality.

Butterflies have also become a symbol of hope, and of “the cycle of life — birth, transition, healing and renewal,” according to the program at the second annual Ontario-Yates Hospice Wings of Hope memorial butterfly release, held Sunday on the Ontario County Court House lawn. About 300 monarch butterflies were released at the event by everyday people, young and old, in honor of loved ones who had passed away. Some, but not all of those memorialized, had hospice care near the ends of their lives.

The Shulers of Canandaigua — Amy, Tory, Karina, Hunter and Tyler — were honoring Amy’s mother, Jean Richards. Carolyn Dewey and her grandson Alex Simmons, both of Canandaigua, were memorializing Dewey’s son-in-law’s parents, on behalf of Dewey’s daughter Debbie Clynes, who could not attend the event.

“I think it’s a very moving way to express our memory,” said Dewey.

Wendy, Darryl, Alysha and Brianna Ruggles and Linda, Richard and Courtney Dauber, all of Canandaigua, were honoring relative Mary Boucher, of Massachusetts, and Darryl Ruggles’ friend Troy Griffin, of Shortsville.

“It’s a nice experience, and the donation goes to a good cause,” said Darryl. “And the butterflies can fly wherever Troy is — we can’t.”

The monarchs, each enclosed in a triangle of folded paper, had been shipped in a hibernation state from the Wish Upon A Butterfly farm in New Castle, Pa. To assuage concerns about releasing non-native butterflies in a foreign habitat, event organizers explained that they selected the monarch, a butterfly species already common in this area.

Each family or individual who had made a $30 memorial donation, to benefit Ontario-Yates Hospice, received one butterfly. After a program that included bagpipe and vocal music, prayers, poem readings and a reading of the names of those being memorialized, the monarchs were released en masse.

Some of the butterflies flew upward right away, while others flocked to the bright flowers in pots on the courthouse steps or in the prints of attendees’ shirts and skirts.

Each year since the organization was founded in 1994, Ontario-Yates Hospice workers have cared for about 350 people near the end of life. Hospice workers attend to the needs of dying residents in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice homes like Hospeace House in Naples, comfort care homes like Serenity House in Victor and the House of John in Clifton Springs, and in patients’ homes.

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